The present invention relates to a primitive display plate and a method of manufacturing a display plate, and a method of manufacturing a display apparatus, and particularly to a manufacturing technique suitable for manufacturing a timepiece dial.
In general, in manufacturing a wristwatch, a desired surface pattern (including numeric characters, characters, time scales, etc.) is formed in a predetermined design on the surface of a metal plate by coating, printing or surface treatment, and separated in a predetermined shape to form a dial. The dial is then attached to a timepiece movement, and finally set in a watch case. As a method of forming the desired surface pattern on the dial, pad printing, screen printing, offset printing, and the like, which are described in Special Printing (written by Kazuo Matsumoto, issued by Insatsu Shuppan Kenkyusho), Introduction to Special Printing (written by Ichiro Ikeda, issued by Society of Printing, Editing Section), etc. are frequently used. In these printing methods, a block copy is created by a photomechanical technique and is used for each print color.
However, the conventional method of forming a dial is suitable for forming a great number of dials having a predetermined design, but in multi-kind and small-quantity production, which has been recently increasingly required, the method requires the creation of a plate at each change of the design, thereby increasing the production cost and requiring more time before the start of production. Thus it requires, at least, about 1 to 2 weeks before the delivery date. Particularly, a watch provided with an original pattern has been recently increasingly required. In this case, the number of the products is small enough to further increase the production cost per product, and delivery of a watch having a dial having a required pattern within a short time is very difficult because more time is required for forming a plate.
In displaying a character on the dial, in some cases, many plates are needed because five colors or more are required, thereby inevitably increasing the production cost and delaying the delivery date. Particularly, in printing after the formation of each of the dial shapes, more time is required for positioning a plurality of plates and a dial, and color matching, thereby requiring a skilled worker.
Furthermore, in printing on the dial, a general-purpose printing apparatus cannot be easily used, thus an expensive special machine is required, and an installation place for the special machine must be secured, causing the need for steps taken against noise and dust during an operation of the machine. In addition, the printing step requires the use of a printing ink using an organic solvent and a cleaning solution, thereby requiring environmental measures and safety and health measures and creating heavy incidental equipment costs.
Accordingly, the present invention has been achieved for solving the above problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide a novel primitive display plate, and methods of manufacturing a display plate and a display apparatus, which are capable of rapidly manufacturing a display plate having a surface pattern having a required design and a display apparatus comprising the display plate as various display plates such as a watch dial, which are capable of minimizing an increase in the manufacturing cost by a simple work process, and which are capable of decreasing equipment cost.
In order to achieve the object, a primitive display plate of the present invention comprises a supporting portion comprising a positioning structure formed to be positioned by engagement with another member, a display plate shape portion formed to have a predetermined positional relation to the positioning structure and having the planar shape of a display plate to be manufactured, and a connecting portion for connecting the display plate shape portion and the supporting portion, which are integrally provided, wherein an ink-receiving layer is formed on the surface of the display plate shape portion, for holding received ink droplets thereby.
In the present invention, the supporting portion having the positioning structure, and the display plate shape portion comprising the ink-receiving layer provided on the surface thereof are connected through the connecting portion to permit ink jet system printing in which ink droplets are ejected onto the display plate shape portion on the basis of the positioning structure, and permit separation of a display plate by cutting the connecting portion after printing. Therefore, an appropriate print pattern can be formed on the surface of the display plate without using a plate, thereby permitting the rapid manufacture of the display plate while minimizing an increase in manufacturing cost even under conditions of multi-kind and small-quantity production. By using the primitive display plate, printing and cutting of the connecting portion can be carried out by general-purpose small equipment without using a special large manufacturing equipment, and thus the display plate can be manufactured in an appropriate place, thereby rapidly and flexibly complying with demands of customers.
In the present invention, the surface of the connecting portion is preferably lower than the surface of the display plate shape portion.
In the present invention, since the surface of the connecting portion is lower than the surface of the display plate shape portion, it is possible to decrease damage such as a defect, peeling, swelling in a printed pattern on the surface and a lower layer structure below the printed pattern at the edge of the display plate shape portion even by cutting the connecting portion.
In the present invention, the ink-receiving layer is preferably not formed on the positioning structure.
In the present invention, since the ink-receiving layer is not formed on the positioning structure, it is possible to decrease the possibility of deteriorating the engagement precision of the positioning structure due to the thickness of the ink-receiving layer, thereby positioning the display plate shape portion with high precision.
In the present invention, preferably, a coating layer is formed on the surface of the display plate shape portion, and the ink-receiving layer is formed on the surface of the coating layer, the ink-receiving layer being transparent or semitransparent.
In the present invention, since the ink-receiving layer is formed on the coating layer, and the ink-receiving layer is transparent or semitransparent, the color tone, the texture, etc. of the coating layer can be observed through the ink-receiving layer, and thus the color tone, the texture, etc. of the printed pattern formed by adhering ink droplets can be set in a wide range, thereby widening a variation of appearance designs of the display plate, and increasing the expressiveness of the display plate. Also, the surface of the coating layer can be formed with a color tone suitable for, for example, printing a white color (unpatterned) to improve the coloring property of the printed pattern and the reproducibility of the color tone, whereby the color tone and pattern having high quality can be formed.
In the present invention, the positioning structure preferably comprises a through hole formed in the supporting portion.
In the present invention, since the positioning portion comprises a through hole, positioning can easily be performed with high precision by simple positioning means such as a pin.
In the present invention, with the ink-receiving layer comprising a porous surface, in some cases, the ink-receiving layer comprises a material having high absorbency for the ink droplets.
The primitive display plate of the present invention is preferably formed from a shaped substrate. By using the shaped substrate, i.e., the substrate having a predetermined outer shape, a common positioning jig or an apparatus having a common structure can be ordinarily used, and thus the display plate shape portion can be easily handled in the printing step and the step of cutting the connecting portion, thereby decreasing the manufacturing cost.
A method of manufacturing a display plate of the present invention comprises: processing a primitive plate including a supporting portion comprising a positioning structure formed to be positioned by engagement with another member on the basis of the positioning portion to form a display plate shape portion having the planar shape of a display plate to be manufactured and a connecting portion for connecting the display plate shape portion to the supporting portion; forming an ink-receiving layer on the surface of the display plate shape portion; ejecting and adhering a plurality of ink droplets to the ink-receiving layer on the basis of the positioning structure to form a surface pattern corresponding to a desired image pattern; and cutting the connecting portion to separate the display plate.
In the present invention, the ink-receiving layer is preferably not formed on the positioning structure.
In the present invention, the surface of the connecting portion is preferably lower than the display plate shape portion.
In the present invention, the image pattern is preferably input to a computer or stored in the computer, output data is formed with correspondence between electronic data corresponding to the image pattern and the position data corresponding to the display plate shape portion to transmit the output data from the computer to an ink jet printing apparatus which can print a predetermined pattern by ejecting the ink droplets and which can perform positioning by engagement with the positioning structure so that the ink jet printing apparatus is driven according to the output data to form the surface pattern on the display plate shape portion with the positioning structure engaged with the positioning portion.
In the present invention, an appropriate image pattern can be printed on the display plate shape portion according to the desire of a manufacturer or a customer by the ink jet printing apparatus without using a conventional plate, whereby an increase in the manufacturing cost can be prevented even in small-quantity production, and the display plate can be rapidly manufactured with the desired printed pattern. In addition, the printed pattern is positioned relative to the display plate shape portion by using the position data input from the computer, and thus a positioning work can easily be carried out during printing only by engaging the positioning structure with the positioning portion of the ink jet printing apparatus, thereby avoiding complexity of the work.
In the present invention, position and shape data of the display plate shape portion is preferably input to the computer or stored in the computer so that the image data is superposed on the display plate shape displayed on the basis of the position and shape data to form the position data in correspondence with the electronic data corresponding to the image pattern.
In the present invention, the position data of the image pattern can be formed by superposing the desired image pattern on the position and shape data, and thus the printed pattern corresponding to the image pattern can be formed in the desired size at the desired position according to the desire of the worker in the manual method of superposing both patterns, and formed in the desired size at the desired position previously set under predetermined conditions in the automatic method of superposing both patterns. Furthermore, printing can be performed after the superposed state is recognized, and thus the finished state can be previously estimated, thereby manufacturing a display plate according to demand.
In the present invention, a first image component and a second image component, which are separately obtained or formed, are preferably superposed and synthesized by the computer to form the image pattern.
In the present invention, since an original image pattern of the printed pattern of the display plate is formed by superposing and synthesizing the first image component and the second image component using the computer, one or a plurality of shaped patterns can be superposed on any other desired pattern to easily edit the printed pattern of the display plate. For example, in manufacturing a timepiece dial as the display plate, a functional pattern comprising numerical characters for time display, other characters, scales, logos, etc. is previously set as the shaped pattern, and a decorative pattern comprising a picture or the like as any desired pattern is superposed on the shaped pattern so that the printed pattern of the dial can be formed by a simple operation.
In the present invention, preferably, the position and shape data of the display plate shape portion is input to or stored in the computer, and the first image component and the second image component are superposed on and synthesized with the display plate shape formed based on the position and shape data to form the image pattern and the position data in correspondence with the electronic data corresponding to the image pattern.
A method of manufacturing a display apparatus of the present invention comprises: forming a display plate by the method of manufacturing a display plate; and incorporating the display plate in an apparatus.
In this case, preferably, the steps for the formation of the ink-receiving layer on the primitive plate are carried out in a manufacturing place such as a factory, and the primitive plate is transferred to a sales base such as a sales center or a store so that the image pattern is formed or selected in the sales base, and printing is also performed in the sales base.
A primitive display plate of the present invention has the above-described construction and is used as a timepiece dial.
A primitive display plate of the present invention has the above-described construction and is used as a date dial of a timepiece.
A primitive display plate of the present invention has the above-described construction and is used as a day-of-week dial of a timepiece.
In the present invention, the timepiece dial, the date dial permitting display of dates through a window provided on the dial, or the day-of-week dial permitting display of day of the week through the window provided on the dial is formed by using the primitive display plate having the above construction to permit the formation of an appropriate printed pattern on the surface of the watch display plate without using a conventional plate, whereby the watch dial, the date dial of a watch, or the day-of-week dial of a watch can be easily and rapidly manufactured while keeping down the manufacturing cost even under conditions of multi-kind and small-quality production.